A Guide To Why The Universe Hates Hunters In Particular
by MultipleAnecdotes
Summary: It's a well known fact that the universe favors no one and hates everyone, it's just common knowledge. But it seems that the universe hates one particular hunter named Karkat Vantas more than the rest, plagued by shitty luck and an even shittier future. It's little consolation to realize that the universe gives all hunters the same spiteful treatment.
1. Prologue

So I said I was going to be revamping Be The Hunter and here is the prologue, it should follow about the same story line as Be The Hunter did with a few minor tweaks, then continue off of where Be The Hunter stopped. Hope you like! Also, Homestuck most definitely does not belong to me.

* * *

Holy fucking shitballs was he plastered as fuck. The hand clutching onto his umpteenth shot of whiskey slammed it down, then back to the counter, woozily calling out for another. The barkeeper took the glass and sighed, shaking his head, "Alright, listen, I don't know what you're drinking away and, frankly, I don't care, but I'm cutting you off." Karkat groaned and flipped the guy off. "Cute. You're lucky you've already paid." _Yeah_ , Karkat's head helpfully popped in, _with a fake credit card. How mad is he gonna be when he finds out? Best not stick around to find out, he's like some kind of bull on steroids, how jacked he is._

"Fuck you, fine," he slurred, hopping off of the barstool, stumbling backwards before regaining his footing, "I'm out, you just drove away a loyal" – hic – "customer, never to return in the forever of fucking ever. Never. Never gonna come back so go shove a bottle." The inhabitants around him, if they were sober enough to comprehend, turned their heads and stifled laughter into their drinks. Knowing he'd overstayed his welcome, surprising with how drunk he was, he stumbled out the door and into the cold darkness.

How long had it been since he'd been home? It took a while for his drunk mind to process the sudden question before it slowly whirred out a 'four fucking years.' Four fucking years. He hadn't seen his siblings in a while, not even his twin sister Nepeta. His older brother Kankri could bite it, the pretentious fucking prick, and he and his cousin Muelin had never been all that close to each other. She wasn't even his cousin by birth but by marriage.

 _Wow, thanks universe,_ Karkat managed to think – blinking rapidly to get used to the blinding darkness – _for reminding me of the very things I got drunk to forget. Really, ten asshole points to you because my own failures as a human being just need to be brought up to light again as if I don't already fucking know I'm a horrible piece of self-loathing shit._ But that was too much thinking and cooked up a mighty fine migraine that plagued every step Karkat took. It, in fact, hurt as if Satan was shoving his giant goat hoof or whatever straight up his asshole into his intestines and all the way up to his brains.

Okay, maybe shouldn't be so casual about the mentioning of Satan, considering there are eyes and ears everywhere. Plus he didn't really know what he was mumbling out loud and what was staying in his head, being so far gone and all. Legally he wasn't allowed to drink, being 18 and all, but fake IDs were his best friends for life. He still looked like he was 12, but barkeeps in the shadier parts of town wouldn't turn down a paying customer with a seemingly legit ID, even if said customer looked, again, like he was 12-years-old. It was better than when he actually was 12 years old and had to pay homeless guys to go to the package store and buy beer for him. Now he could just go, for lack of a better expression, right to the udder.

This wasn't a good looking street his drunken mind cautioned and, to be honest, it really didn't look all that safe. There was only one streetlight and even that was flickering as if it were about to go out, there was also absolutely zero life. No people, no dogs, no cats, hell, not even any rats. The most cliché setting in which he was the frightened little girl wandering down the abandoned alley. He'd find it weird usually, but he just wanted to get home and sleep off both his drunkenness and his hangover. If he was lucky, he'd wake up about 6 PM the next day. Ah, that would be the life.

Stuck in his dreaming, his back had been shoved against the brick wall, outturned bricks digging into the small of his back. "Holy shit," he coughed, shaking his head to get his bearings, "holy fucking shit what the hell?" It took him a good couple of seconds to figure out what was happening, the metaphorical gears in his head taking a hell of a long time to turn. In front of him stood a sinfully beautiful woman with red hair that reached all the way down to her waist. Both her hair and her face drew his attention, the soothing smile quickly morphed into a sharp toothed grin. "Demon bitch," he stuttered, trying to shake out of her grasp.

She looked surprised that he knew what she was, but what the fuck else did she expect from a hunter? Albeit a rather wasted hunter, but a hunter nonetheless. It was the family business, in a way. His parents got out of that line of the work after they got married and both he and his twin were four. But after a rather rude encounter at the age of eight, his parents decided that all three of them needed to learn basic self-defense, especially against the supernatural. He and Nepeta had a special mark on them apparently, it drew the supernatural towards them and not always the benevolent type.

He began paying attention when he realized she was talking, "-and as I said, tsk tsk, very rude to call someone a bitch."

"Even if they're a demon bitch?" he slurred, giving her a shit eating grin, "also, can you repeat that, I just wasn't listening." Her lips curled into a distasteful scowl.

"You're an idiotic human," she spat, leaning closer to his neck, a vampire then, "the world should be glad that I'm getting rid of you." Before she could sink her teeth in, his knife was shoved into her abdomen. Her eyes blew out wide, almost comically wide, as her mouth went agape. Yeah, a blessed knife does that to a demon. Then her head exploded.

Okay.

That was new.

Oh, that wasn't him, thank God, that meant he wasn't getting any crazy psychic super powers or whatever. It was the work of a shotgun with a powerful kick of, what he assumed to be, silver bullet. Sliding to the ground, he saw both a masculine figure and a feminine figure standing above him, seemingly looking down to him. The masculine one gestured towards him and the feminine one shrugged, nodding. Everything went black once the masculine figure leaned down to pick him up.


	2. Chapter One - Friendly(?) Faces

**Friendly(?) Faces**

Well, as it turns out, he did wake up about 6 PM the next day. Or, at least, around that time. He thinks. It's definitely afternoon.

The next thing he notices is that wow, that's definitely not a familiar ceiling. His head feels like a beehive is holding a rave part right in the hearing part of his brain, a horrible buzzing, bumping sound filling his ears, but otherwise he seems generally unhurt. Untouched, too, not even his clothes were adjusted, so that means that he was thrown into bed without any modifications to his person. He'll take it. Once he started to get up, he was tugged back by a sudden, cold pressure at his right wrist. Still bleary, he glances back to see his right hand firmly handcuffed to the bedpost. Huh. Kinky.

Then the panic set in. _Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, oh shit shit, shit_. It was about all that his mind could synthesize at the moment, metal rattling as he attempted to shimmy and or yank his way out of the restraints. He didn't do his best thinking when he was hungover and should've reverted to his knowledge of how to pick locks. No one said that Karkat was good thinking under both pressure and under an intense bee rave party that kept on getting consistently louder. He looked to the door when someone entered.

There was a large, broad-shouldered Mexican man standing at the doorway. His posture was unsure despite his size, brown hair pulled into a curly center Mohawk. Kind brown eyes fell on him and he gave a timid smile, walking forward with embarrassingly timid steps. For fucks sake, this guy was built like a tank, why the fuck wasn't he the cock of the walk? Wow that brought up dirty mental images so he thinks he'd rather stop thinking. Forever. He'd rather stop thinking forever. Man his head really hurt.

"The fuck are you," he growled, pulling back a lip to show off his impressive pearly whites, canines amazingly sharp, "and why the hell have you decided, 'Oh, hey, you know what would really fuck with this kid? Like _really_ fuck with this kid? Lets take the thing he uses to both function and masturbate with and cuff to the goddamn bedpost like some sort of suburban mom's wet dream when her husband rolls off of her after five seconds. No really, I would like to know, please, explain." So the yelling didn't make his head feel any better, but he'd prefer a throbbing head over not being able to yell any day. Could he even whisper? Not even Karkat knew the answer to that one.

"Uh, I'm Tavros?" the man offered, holding his hands out as if he were about to hold something. Karkat's face went deadpan, nose twitching up into a slight snarl.

"Wow, no really, thanks, that solved every fucking problem I have right now. Soon as you graced me with your fucking name, I immediately understood every scrap and speck of information that you were trying to convey to me. Really. I applaud your communication skills-" He was cut off by a splash of water directly into his face.

He waited a second.

Then another.

As calmly as he could, he gritted out the words, "That better have been holy water and you better have not just splashed me with water for the hell of it." The broad-shoulder man just decided to chuckle, nodding and placing the flask back into his pocket.

"Yup! That was holy water, just, uh, checking to, y'know, make, make sure that you're not an, um, a demon, shorty," he explained, tacking on 'shorty' at the end like some sort of afterthought.

"Original, no really, very original, never been called that before you FUCKING BREAD FUCKING ASSHOLE. DO YOUR SHOULDERS SUBTRACT MASS FROM YOUR FUCKING BRAIN OR SOMETHING. Fucks sake." To say Karkat wasn't currently a happy camper would the understatement of the day, month, year, eon. He just really didn't want to be handcuffed anymore, every moment he was screamed danger danger in a small, cute robotic voice. At any moment, this man could shove a knife through his heart or do many more much worse things to him. It nearly made him shudder to think about the possibilities and believe him when he said hes seen a lot.

But the man looked distressed despite being in the placement of power, holding his hands up as a sweat broke out across his brow, "Uh, uh, uh, yeah, okay, sorry. Not nice of me to, um, do. Here, I'll just, unlock those for you." He moved forward with a slight limp in his step, now that Karkat was focused on him he noticed more, and once the man was above him, a key was pulled out. "Do you, y'know, uh, promise not to do me or my teammate any kind of harm?"

Groaning, Karkat nodded, running his free hand through his hair, "Listen, I could have gotten out of these and snapped your neck if I really wanted to, buddy, so the fact that I'm letting you keep me locked up is a sign of good fucking faith, now get the fuck out before I do well with my abilities, yeah?" Tavros stuttered with his nod and slipped the key into the handcuffs, the cheap metal contraptions clicking off easy enough. Karkat immediately went to tending to the sore skin, rubbing it. "Thanks gimpy," he muttered, swinging his feet to the side of the bed then bringing himself to stand. He fell forward and Tavros went to catch him, but Karkat growled him away, grabbing onto the nightstand where he got his bearings.

"This way," Tavros said so quietly that Karkat wasn't even sure that he had spoken, but luckily his hearing was as paranoid as the boy and picked up far-off or quiet sounds. His own footsteps were uneven and woozy while Tavros' strode resolutely even with the small limp in his step. Must have been an accident of some sort, Karkat figured but did not ask. It wasn't as if he'd be with these people for long.

Once he'd gotten into the living room, he saw that there were two more people. A skin-and-bones Asian boy sat lounged back on the chair typing away on some clunky, shit-looking laptop. A woman sat upon the couch, fuzzy, puffy black hair going all the way down to her waist. She was the first to notice him, standing and giving him a smile with no mirth in her eyes. A dead looking smile. But standing he could see that she was the same height as him, about five feet two. The computer nerd looked up and snorted.

"Thi'th the fucking idiot?" he asked and it took Karkat everything he had not to burst out laughing, hand flying to his mouth.

"This is Karkat," Tavros attempted, hoping that nothing started between the two but upon seeing the hidden laughter, his face turned a shade of red as he stood. Tall, much taller than him and even than Tavros. A little over six feet then, since Tavros looked about six.

"You got th'omething to th'ay, brainle'th?" he snapped, placing his laptop off to the side and crossing his arms.

"Oh no no no," Karkat chuckled, "it's just, oh my God, that lisp man. It _th'ound'th_ like you're _th'ome_ two year old that _ju'th't pi'th'ed him'th'elf_ on the playground." He made sure to emphasize the lisp to make it absolutely certain that he was, indeed, making fun of the others lisp.

"Hey fuck you, it'th genetic'th, and it'th no better than your th'tupid ak'th'ent," Sollux snapped back, pausing from his keyboard molesting for a quick glare.

"My _slight_ Russian accent is, in fact, much fucking better than your idiotic lisp, doofus."

"Alright, alright," Aradia placated, holding her hands up, "that's enough. We can leave the shit-talking for a later, better date. I'm Aradia. This is Sollux." Karkat winced at the name, his old friend John would certainly get a kick out of it and wait, no, don't think of John. "And I'm sure you already know Tavros."

"Yes, I have been unfortunate enough to make acquaintance with this hunk of disgustingly shaped, hopefully human piece of meat. Honestly, just looking at all of you wants me to take these nails of mine and puncture them right into my eyeballs then choke one of you with the removed appendages." The room was silent before Aradia broke off into a grin.

"I like him."

Sollux rolled his eyes, bifurcated now that Karkat's mind was clearer and able to focus, one blue and one brown. With the wave of his freakishly, slenderman-esque hand, he trained an unimpressed look onto Karkat. "Look, kid, I don't give two fuck'th about who you are, I ju'th't want to know what po'th'e'th'ed you to get caught by a demon? Al'th'o, why the fuck were you out getting hammered? You can't be legal drinking age."

"I'm not," Karkat affirmed, a tinge of pride to his voice, "I'm eighteen but I fool those damn stupid bouncers and bartenders all the damn time. Fine skill if you ask me, I'm a great liar." Karkat struck a stupid pose with fingers pointed like a gun resting below his chin. Then he went and flopped down onto the chair, Tavros excused himself and grabbed a drink of water for him. Without much thought Karkat uttered a quick thank-you and downed the entire glass.

"You're drinking. At eighteen?" Sollux asks incredulously, glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose even though the incessant typing never stopped. Aradia snorted.

"Like we haven't hear crazier things than teenage drinking," she retorted in that monotone voice of hers. Sollux shrugged and nodded his agreement.

"The fuck you guys doing, contemplating my decisions. Go fuck yourself, my decisions are fucking awesome and you all can just shut your shit-talking gobs about it. How old are you donkey diddlers?"

"Oh, well, I'm twenty two," Tavros, who'd been relatively quiet, popped in with a small smile on his face.

"Nineteen," Sollux grumbled, pressing his glasses up with one finger. This kid was way too anime for his own good.

"Twenty," Aradia popped in, clapping her hands together, the sound resonating across the room, "I'm glad that we're introducing ourselves to each other. Maybe we can even be friends?"

After toying with the glass, he took a glance up and puffed his chest out. "Hey, you all are hunters right?" They all shared a look before nodding slowly. "Then that settles that. I'm offering you guys a once in a lifetime deal here, and I mean once in a lifetime. You get to have the fabulous and obviously superior in every way me gracing the presence of your team for an extended time. If your brains couldn't wrap around that, it means I'm offering to help you shitheads in the whole hunting biz. We're a dying breed and by dying I mean we're getting slaughtered like cattle out there. So whaddya say?" Their mouths hung open in surprise from the simple, straightforward bluntness of his proposition.

"We could be murderers for all you know," Aradia intoned.

"Or, uh, cultists," Tavros added.

"Or both," Sollux tacked on.

Karkat snorted, long and long, waving his hand back and forth in dismissal. "Ah fuck it, if I can take down five demons the size of horses then I can take down one skinny nerd, one plump nerd, and one disproportionate nerd." The three hesitantly pointed fingers at each other, trying to figure out who was who. As soon as it was figured out, skinny Asian nerd took great offense.

"Well," Aradia says as cheerfully as she possibly could, "then I suppose the drugs weren't really necessary, were they?"

"Fuck yeah they weren't – wait, drugs? What drugs are we talking about because if you drugged my drink I swear to God _and_ Satan that I will kick your ass to the moon and – " Karkat didn't even get to finish his sentence as he slumped over into a drug-induced coma.


End file.
